And in the Sparkling of the Day We All Go
by CaffeineChic
Summary: Did telling even matter? Companion piece to Stumble through the Darkness Looking for the Day


A/N: This is a companion piece to Stumble Through The Darkness Looking for the Day

There is ambrosia in both of their glasses, gone untouched. A part of Bill wants to drink and keep drinking and numb all the parts of him that are aching. His (all but) wife is dying. His (all but) brother is a cylon. His (all but) daughter is still a question he refuses to hear answered. And the earth they stepped onto in search of a future was an eradicated mockery of all that they'd been through.

But--

Laura is stronger this week than she has been in a long time. She has been smiling more, standing for longer.

Kara is no longer screaming and railing, but commanding and calm. She has been reborn.

Saul...Saul...Saul┘ Saul is Saul is a cylon is Saul is the man sitting across from him, his drink untouched too.

Everything is different now. He is a soldier, used to thinking on his feet, adjusting the current course as the present situation shifts around him.

Five days ago and his oldest friend had been (all but) human, but he had still been his friend. How much did knowing change what he _knew_?

Five days ago and Earth had been their great hope, then their tragedy. They'd found pockets of land that they could inhabit. Make better. Heal (themselves). It wasn't the dream, but it was what they had. All of them.

Five days ago and he'd have killed a cylon for being a cylon (except...)--but not Athena. Not Kara if she had been, if she was...

The cylons were staying too. The present situation had shifted. They were in this together now. They could bear life. They could die now too. They couldn't cast the cylons out. Fear of death, of the future, of _life _lurked in everyone's eyes now.

He picked up his glass. Put it down again. Answers weren't in it. "She staying with you?" His question surprises them both.

Saul clears his throat. "Yeah." He takes a moment before continuing. "Could hardly keep her in the brig. She doesn't want to go to the baseship. Said she would though if..." -- if you send her, me, away. if she is -- I am, we are not welcome, not wanted, not love--

"You could find her guest quarters." -- she is, you are, not...unwelcome. not unwanted. not unloved -- The world is changing, _has _changed. Adjust as you go.

They are both men of action, of doing. But men of words too, of saying. Words would be more powerful now. Tensions were swirling, coiling at their feet-- confusion, apprehension, fear on both their parts. Like a snake ready to wind itself around them both, kill them by constriction.

"You couldn't find the President of the Colonies guest quarters."

"I didn't look." A beat. The snake slithers from the room. Vanishes.

Boyish looks pass between them, ghosts of those lost from their youth -- girls are hard work, sometimes you have to be tricky. Both men smile. They are both _men_.

"Where is she now?" Bill pauses, corrects course, "Caprica, where is Caprica now?" He must refer to her by name. She has one.

"Life Station. Cottle needed blood."

"Saul. Don't let her wander on her own."

Saul bristles slightly, affronted a little for himself, for her too. "You think she's a security risk?" -- do you still think I am?--

"No. She's a pregnant...woman (isn't she?) on a battleship." (that's seen too many women gunned down in its halls)

He watches Saul's face, studies him. If you couldn't tell by looking, if you couldn't tell by blood, if you couldn't tell by knowing your best friend for thirty years...then could you tell at all? Did telling even matter? His best friend was going to be a father. The father of the first cylon child. He still remembers how he felt when Carolanne told him she was pregnant. It is terrifying no matter what the genetics.

"You love her?"

"I don't know. Hell, I don't know anything right now." Bill watches him think for a minute, there is a lot that they both don't know right now. He sees a look a certainty flick across Saul's face, he's sure of something -- "She says I do." He watches Saul correct course. He is a soldier too. "Caprica. Caprica says that I do."

Bill shrugs, unsurprised, really. "They're usually right about this stuff."

"What about Laura?"

"_Always _right about this stuff." He grins at his friend. He is his friend.

"Godsdammit, I don't know how to be a father." -- I don't even know if I'm a man anymore--

"I still don't. Just keep trying." -- I need to. you need to. we all have to try now -- "What the frak am I doing, Bill?"

"Same as the rest of us, figuring it out." -- we'll figure it out together -- He looks at him, holds his gaze, holds it strong. "You're still Saul Tigh." -- still my friend, a cylon, still my friend--

Saul nods once. Saul has served under him for all the important years of both of their lives. All the years when they both proved that they were more than they thought they were capable of. He thinks of it now, that he has known Saul for thirty of his human years and six months of his first cylon one. And he would never have known the difference if he hadn't been told. Saul Tigh is his friend. His friend is Saul Tigh.

He watches as Saul looks around, taking in the changes to the space, all Laura's small touches. He's noticed it too, the way the colouring seems brighter. Maybe it's just that he's been coloured by love. He thinks maybe that's the only change he can see in Saul, that he's been coloured with it now too.

Saul seems to hit on the same thought, bristling. "Where's Laura?"

"Life Station. Cottle wanted blood outta her too."

They look at each other. And know. They are not having blood drawn. They are both on their feet and through the hatch in an instant.

"That frakking woman"

"Better be your woman you're talking about, Saul" -- my girl's off limits --


End file.
